Patrick Vincent McNamara (American, 1894-1966)
Harry Mendelson (American)
Typed Signed Letter, August 22, 1962
United States Committee on Labor and Public Welfare Letterhead
Jewish War Veterans, Harold Beaton Interest
McNAMARA Patrick Vincent: An American politician. A Democrat, he served as a United States Senator from Michigan from 1955 until his death from a stroke in Bethesda, Maryland in 1966. A pipe-fitter by trade, he became foreman at the Fore River Shipyard while playing semi-professional football from 1909 to 1920. After moving to Detroit he married Kathleen Kennedy, then remarried after her death to Mary Mattee. Working various supervisory jobs he continued his education and became president of the Pipe Fitters Local 636 and Vice-President of the Detroit chapter of the American Federation of Labour (1939-1945). He ran for Detroit City Council and was a member of the Detroit Board of Education and won a Senate seat in 1954 In the Eighty-seventh Congress, he became the first chairman of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. He also chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Public Works in the Eighty-eighth and Eighty-ninth Congresses. The 1959 committee hearings which Pat McNamara called on the subject of the health of the elderly began a public debate which led to the creation of Medicare. (Via Wikipedia)
